I’m truly saddened about J.D. Salinger’s death today. His book, “Franny and Zoey” changed my life one wintery night during my first residency at Goddard College.
Goddard was where I finally arrived to finish my B.A. in my early 20s and one of the first things you do as part of the work is complete your semester independent study plan with your advisor and fellow group members. The semester’s study is what you will work on throughout the semester once you’ve returned home.
The students there I felt were so hip and artistic and at a depth of soulfulness that I’d not yet experienced. The experience was overwhelming.
I spent several hours during the first few days at Goddard, truly refining what I thought was the magnum opus of all independent study plans. “Oh, this will blow my advisor away,” I thought, full of pride and bravado. “This will go in the halls of infamy as one of the best study plans ever!”
Skipping down to my advisor/group meeting carrying this hallowed six page document, I reveled in anticipation at what I was sure would entail several rounds of standing ovations (from my advisor Rob Tarule and the other six members of the group.) Tripping over a particularly big mound of sidewalk snow should have been my first sign that things were not going to go as I thought they might.
Holding my document in the air as I fell and thereby ensuring its dryness in lieu of my own bloodied knees and wet beret, I walked those final steps to the group’s meeting place.
Finally, it was my turn to present my study plan – rising from my bean bag chair I started reading! Alas, by the fourth paragraph my advisor Rob said, “This sounds very scholarly, but where are YOU in this document? What will change in YOU and your creative work by doing this study?” I couldn’t answer this. Rob gave me one more night to rework the plan -to put ME – in the plan.
It was about 23 degrees that night as I trudged up in my red boots back to the Goddard library to read samples of other plans – anything that might show me what was the RIGHT plan for me.
After spending two depressing hours in one bookshelf area, studying other successfully executed plans, I moved to another row of books. There I spied, “Franny and Zoey” by J.D. Salinger.
Suffering from severe anxiety I sat down on the floor beside the bookshelf and read the book from front to back in the middle of that night in the library. That book was where I found my answer to the block I was feeling over writing the “perfect” study plan.
The answer was this phrase, “An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”
I worked all night creating a whole new study plan and in doing so created a plan to be a writer, an artist, an idea-lover not focused on perfection, but focused only on finally meeting and expressing my artistic soul on my own terms.
God bless Salinger for that gift.
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